Friday, November 22, 2013

Aloha Rose

Enter Today | 11/15 - 11/30!

Book Info and review

About the book: When Laney Carrigan's adoptive parents encourage her as an adult to seek out her birth family, her only clue is the Lokelani quilt in which she was found wrapped as an infant. Centering her search on the Big Island, she battles fears of rejection from a family that abandoned her once before while her faith struggles to embrace God's love.

Along the path to her true heritage, she meets Hawaiian cowboy/helicopter pilot, Kai Barnes. Kai is determined to protect the people he's come to regard as family against a woman he suspects of being nothing more than a gold-digger, but he finds himself drawn to Laney in spite of his reservations. He's spent his entire life seeking forgiveness from past mistakes and longs for a second chance at happiness.

Laney's painstaking journey to find restoration and a place to belong among the breathtaking allure of the Big Island will lead her closer to her past and maybe even something more.

My thoughts:

ALOHA ROSE exceeded my expectations. As book twelve in the Quilts of Love series, a collection of stories written by different authors about quilts and how they are the threads that hold a family together, this book was just head and shoulders above most of the others I’ve read so far in this series.

Both Kai and Laney are survivors. Both abandoned as children, Laney’s mother leaving her on a doorstep, and Kai’s mother murdered in his presence. Plus, Kai is suffering for PTSD, a result of Afghanistan. But while Kai knows his history, Laney has no memory of it. Only what she has been told or “knows in her heart.” And some of what she “knows” is lies.

There was a twist in this story—but I saw it coming way before it happened, so it wasn’t a big surprise.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Great tension between Laney, Kai, and her family. I wanted the sexual tension to be a notch or two higher, but it was there as well. If you enjoy contemporary romances then ALOHA ROSE is a book you’ll want to read. It will warm your heart in more ways than the Hawaiian sunshine.

Meet the author: Lisa Carter has been published in MomSense andChristian Parenting Today. Lisa is currently teaching music at a preschool and enjoying the enthusiasm and joy for life for which preschoolers are famous. She and David have two beautiful daughters.